How does your company promote & advertise itself? (part 2)

[gnubler]

This has been discussed before but it's time for a fresh thread. Had a lengthy meeting with my company's owner today and he wants to try some new avenues of getting the word out on all the services we offer. It seems as if most of our existing customer base isn't aware of all we offer (eg: "Oh, I didn't know you guys did that" when a CSR mentions our ability to make banners & signage)

The dreaded f-word came up in the meeting and I managed to discourage that idea, for now. I mentioned LinkedIn and will check it out - anyone using it at their company and has it provided any benefit whatsoever? Are there any other online tools out there that have helped to promote your company?

We are going to start doing email blasts once a month to existing customers. Thinking about targeting certain groups (eg: medical offices) and sending out direct mail to try to get them to our site to sign up for monthly email updates.

We print apparel now so I suggested making some very unique & flashy company promo shirts for us to wear to special events or whatever. Kind of like walking billboards.

How is your company acquiring new customers? Does your website offer anything special that your customers seem to use & like? (eg: web to print)

Are we really all doomed?

[david]

it's sad, we sent out an email blast and maybe got 3 responses, we sent out a "Like me on facebork" and no one responded.
We have Linkedin, facebork and twitter, I'm tellin' you, it's a sad world. People are all into these if it involves their family or friends, but as a business, they don't do squat from what I've seen.

[Stiv]

We just sent out a mailer that seems to be generating some work.

We printed some Magnets, we print note pads with our cliients logos on them when we have an empty spot on a form.

In the past we have had seminars or boot camps on different subjects, and we have had an open house.

[gnubler]

People are all into these if it involves their family or friends, but as a business, they don't do squat from what I've seen.

This is exactly what I just conveyed to Bossman regarding facespace & twatbook.

I asked him if he felt like posting a twat every day to keep it current, cuz I sure don't want to. He said "nope" and that was that.

[DigiCorn]

As part of our Printlinqs storefront, we are getting involved with a third party deal called eCard Builder. It has something to do with a customer designing their own business card through our site and the file gets delivered to some other printer somewhere else and we get a commission check for doing nothing other than hosting their product. It doesn't cost us anything ad we don't have to produce it or proof it. Printlinqs has associations that are going to push and drive traffic to our site using Google search so we pop up first when someone looks for a printer in our area. It's all included with our monthly fee.

Linked In is based on the idea that you'll do business with your friends or friends of friends. It's like Rotary Club or LeTip for the internet.

[Joe]

Well we just started a Facebook page less than 2 weeks ago for our local newspaper. It has generated over 200 Likes in less than 2 weeks and we're a very small community. We have setup a twitter page too and our writers post little blurbs throughout the week. Like our sports editor posts scores and game results headlines via twitter which automatically posts to facebook and the web site. The news reporters post little blurbs to facebook which automatically posts to the website. So basically the twitter and facebook posts sends people to our website to get more detailed reports that we publish every week. Of course we don't publish everything for free. Once we get them to the web site we try to get them to subscribe to the print edition and a complete ebook edition subscription.

Email blasts can get you classified as a spammer and if most people are like me they go directly into the trash as soon as I see them.

You can love Facebook/Twitter or hate it but if you ignore it I think it is a mistake.

[DigiCorn]

You can love Facebook/Twitter or hate it but if you ignore it I think it is a mistake.

Agreed. You have to target the lemmings sheep. And that's where they are.

I still want to know why a blast on Twitter is a "tweet" and not a "twit"... and the followers are "followers" and not "twats."

[t-pat]

they're "tweeps"

[t-pat]

fwiw as a company we're clueless and antiquated as far as web. Our webmaster (also our designer) had not heard of youtube until a few months ago when I clued him in. He has never seen twitter and ignores facebook. The site is hosted internally on IIS and he uses Dreamweaver. I tried in vain to explain the benefits of Joomla. (wife is a now "retired" web designer and I've worked with her on several Joomla sites so while I don't do anything with it currently I am pretty aware of how much better it is)

Management is sort of aware of LinkedIn and some are on it, to what extent they use it I have no idea.

[Joe]

I belong to LinkedIn but to me it reminds me of a bunch of rich Republicans sitting around the clubhouse at the country club and I'm in the back room polishing their putter.

[delooch]

I belong to LinkedIn but to me it reminds me of a bunch of rich Republicans sitting around the clubhouse at the country club and I'm in the back room polishing their putter.

yeah, linkedin feels like a bunch of bullshit artists with an open mic. salespeople and "networkers" on a free-for-all. 

"how do you make a grip in illustrator"... 

[gnubler]

Email blasts can get you classified as a spammer and if most people are like me they go directly into the trash as soon as I see them.

I have explained this to Bossman, saying that technically what we are doing is sending out junk mail. He wanted to do a blast every 2 weeks and I said once a month is more reasonable. I use MailChimp for the email blasts and it provides recipients for the option to unsubscribe if they don't want the mail. All the rest will likely go to junk.

[DigiCorn]

I belong to LinkedIn but to me it reminds me of a bunch of rich Republicans sitting around the clubhouse at the country club and I'm in the back room polishing their putter.

Agreed.

It makes me want to create a Macro button in Word to pass around to them that says something like "donation to Palin campaign," but then when they click on it, it reformats their hard drive.